“I’ve got the data and he was a striker who covered nearly 12kms, which is a phenomenal amount of work.

“I think I’ve built up a type of relationship with him where he fully understands what I’m like as a manager and what I’m about and what makes me tick and I’m the same about him.

“Certainly if he keeps delivering what he did on Tuesday he’s got a big part to play in what we’re doing.”

Zigic came off the substitutes’ bench to score in Blues opening two Championship matches.

But he struggled to break Marlon King’s partnership with Peter Lovenkrands and then Lita, plus there was interest from Real Mallorca just before the transfer window closed that almost resulted in his free transfer.

But focused, refreshed after his ban and desperate to play regularly, Zigic could become an important factor for Blues in the coming weeks.

And Clark said that when 6ft 8in Zigic is in the team, it doesn’t follow that Blues suddenly transform into long ball merchants.

They got the ball up quicker to both forwards on Tuesday, which was something they had not been doing at times in previous games and was making them less effective.

And in any case, said Clark, not everyone can play like Barcelona.

“We started that way in terms of playing to the big man,” noted Clark.

“But I think some of our football in their half of the pitch was fantastic.

“We had some of our best passing moves of the season and some of our best goals of the season in terms of our passes.

“We got 14 passes for Leroy Lita’s goal against Bolton, but not one of them was in our own half.

“There’s a way of playing it, but getting the ball down in play.

“Everyone has seen what the Barcelona team are doing and they try and copy it. Play the ball out from the back, centre-backs splitting, full-backs playing high. You can do that when you’ve got the best players in the world.”